


Never Thought That You Would Be

by lillianmmalter



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 11:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18850078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillianmmalter/pseuds/lillianmmalter
Summary: Peggy and Steve finally get their dance.





	Never Thought That You Would Be

**Author's Note:**

> I hated so much about Steve's happy ending in Endgame. I thought it was a disservice to his character and turned Peggy into little more than an object to be won. If you liked that ending, this is likely not the fic for you. If, like me, you left the movie unsatisfied, this is my attempt to fix it, inspired by [this](https://lillianmmalter.tumblr.com/post/184518370275/so-i-have-decided-to-interpret-steves-ending-as) tumblr post.
> 
> Thanks to [truth_renowned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/truth_renowned/pseuds/truth_renowned) for betaing and [Dusty1918](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty1918/works) for cheer reading for me.

Peggy tiptoed out of the nursery with one more glance backward to check on the baby. He was still out cold.

She sighed in relief. She would kill for a nap herself, but more than that she wanted to crack open some of the case files Daniel had smuggled home for her to look over until the doctor gave her leave to go back to work properly. No matter what Jarvis said, it had been too long.

A cup of tea was in order before she really dug in. Peggy padded quietly into the house’s tiny kitchen where she hovered over the hob so she could catch the kettle before its shrill whistle produced a squalling terror and ruined all her afternoon plans.

Tea obtained, Peggy snagged a biscuit from the tin to munch on as she arranged the files over the dining room table. Just as she settled in, the doorbell rang.

Peggy cursed and leapt from her chair, the long, red skirts of her housecoat flaring out behind her as she dashed for the door. It would be just her luck for some idiot salesman to wake the baby. She flung open the front door fully prepared to give the unlucky sod on the other side the tongue-lashing of his life when her brain registered just who was standing on the other side of the screen door.

It was impossible. Absolutely and completely impossible, and yet . . .

“Steve?” she managed to choke out.

He gave her a crooked smile, his hands tucked awkwardly in his pockets.

“Hey, Peg. I know, I’m late.”

Peggy opened the screen door to better see him. He was older than she remembered, older than the four and a half years since she’d last seen him should have made him, and he seemed weary in a bone deep way she’d gotten used to not seeing everywhere anymore.

“You’re alive?” she breathed, her voice cracking in disbelief.

His face twisted in some complicated mess of emotions. “Yeah. It’s kind of a long story, but. Yeah, I’m alive.”

Peggy gasped out a sob. This couldn’t be real, not after all this time. And yet Steve was here, right in front of her, perfectly alive.

She punched him.

“Where the hell have you been?!” she hissed, still conscious of the baby sleeping in the nursery.

Steve straightened from the punch and stood on her porch with a patient, resigned attitude that didn’t suit him.

“Like I said, it’s kind of a long story. Can I come in?”

Peggy swallowed back another sob and jerked her head to invite him in. He strode into the living room already looking around, baldly curious. Peggy found herself suddenly glad that Jarvis insisted on coming round in the mornings to tidy up their front rooms now that the baby was here, as the last thing she wanted Steve to see flung over a dining room chair was a lacy slip or Daniel’s work shirt removed in one of Peggy’s frenzies of frustrated energy at the end of a long day of baby minding.

She wondered if Steve would think her house was too small—she did most days, especially compared to the size of Daniel’s old house back in LA. But it was cheap and, most importantly, had been immediately available when they needed it upon the move to New Jersey. Had they waited even another month, Peggy would have known to factor the baby into their house buying plans, but they hadn’t, and so they were stuck with their tiny yellow bungalow for at least the next year or two.

When Steve turned back to her, his curiosity about her life fulfilled for the time being, Peggy crossed her arms over her chest. He stared at her and she stared back, chin raised, heart pounding madly.

What had he been doing that made him look like that? Where had he been all this time? He had a deep crease between his eyebrows that hadn’t been there before, and, impossibly considering his super soldier bulk, he looked skinny, like he couldn’t bring himself to eat as much as he should.

“Well?” she prompted, unsure how to proceed herself faced with the impossible in front of her, with the unnamable mass of feelings roiling in her gut.

Steve sighed and looked down.

“Well, I didn’t die when the plane went down,” he said.

“Clearly,” she snapped, voice crisp with restrained emotion.

He hesitated again, then pulled out the dining room chair Peggy had abandoned. This house really was far too small.

“You might want to sit down,” he said.

“Don’t patronize me, Steve. Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not. I wouldn’t. It’s just.” He took a breath. “It’s a long story, and you’re probably not gonna believe most of it anyway, so you might as well be comfortable.”

“You’d be surprised what I will and won’t believe these days.”

Between mad scientists and space goo and international conspiracies, there was very little Peggy thought could surprise her anymore. Now that she’d had a moment to get used to the idea, she realized it shouldn’t have shocked her at all that her dead lover had shown up on her doorstep today. After all, her long dead brother had done the same just over a year ago. The bigger question was where the hell Steve had been in the meantime.

Steve acknowledged her remark with a quirk of his eyebrow and sat down in the chair diagonal from the one he’d pulled out for her.

“All right. What do you know about suspended animation?”

 

***

 

When Steve was done talking, his face a picture of grief and his shoulders slumped like she’d never seen them before, Peggy took a breath, sipped her long cold tea, and tried to process everything she’d just heard.

It was unbelievable. Jules Verne couldn’t have come up with a more fantastic plot. Aliens, time travel, the end of the world. And yet Steve did look older than he should. The device he wore around his hand was more delicate and futuristic than anything she’d seen Howard invent. And speaking of Howard . . . .

“Howard really had a son?” she asked.

Steve snorted and shook his head. “That’s what you’re stuck on?”

“Well, it is Howard. He’s not exactly the settling down type.”

One of Steve’s eyebrows twitched in acknowledgement. “Well, he gets married. By all accounts he was a terrible father though, so I don’t know how much he ever really settled down. Not the way Tony did. Tony was such a great dad.”

Peggy peered at him. He kept coming back to Tony, to his genius, his recklessness, his sacrifices. Even the way he said the man’s name was telling. Realization fell over her in an instant.

“You’re in love with him. With Tony.”

Grief, despair, shame, and hope flitted across his features before he clenched his jaw in stubborn denial.

“No, I–”

“You are. I see it. You’ve been in love with him for ages. And you never did anything about it, did you?”

Despair won for a moment.

“He already had someone.”

“The whole time you were in the future?”

Steve sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“He didn’t need an old fossil like me weighing him down.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Steve, it’s not attractive. Besides, shouldn’t that have been his choice? Did you ever even give him the option?”

Steve looked down, shame shadowing his face. Peggy rolled her eyes.

“I swear, you live your life as though you’re in a melodrama. You can charge into battle with nothing more than a tin plate, but heaven forbid you make the first move on someone you like.”

He chuckled, but still wouldn’t meet her eye. There was something about his posture, something in the air around him that reminded her of their time in Europe. Dread and hope settled in her stomach in almost equal measure. Of all the times for him to grow a damn backbone when it came to something he wanted. Or perhaps it was some _one_ he wanted.

“What are you doing here, Steve?” Peggy asked gently, hoping she was wrong and not wanting to deal with it at all if she was right. It was too complicated, too horrible to imagine a way out of this that wouldn’t rip her to pieces, a smaller version of herself than the one she was trying every day to build.

“I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” she said slowly, “but I’m married now. I have a child.”

“I know. I know, Peggy. I just,” he looked down, then back up at her through his eyelashes. She had always been such a sucker for a man who looked up at her through his eyelashes. “I was hoping maybe we could still have that dance.”

“Now?” she asked, her heart in her throat. Why now? If he could travel anywhere in time, why did he choose now when she’d already moved on, when she had a supportive husband she loved and a child the both of them had fought to bring into the world? Why now?

“You told me once how important it was to start over. But I haven’t been able to, not the way I’d like. I guess I was hoping if we actually had our dance . . . .” he trailed off.

“You think you can finally move forward?”

He shrugged. “Maybe? I’ve tried everything else.”

“Surely not everything.”

“You’d be surprised,” he drawled, a puckish smirk lighting his face for a moment before it was gone.

A wave of missing him rushed over her. They’d meant so much to each other during such a dark period in both their lives. In another world, another timeline, maybe, they’d have gotten their happily ever after together, not that there really was such a thing—reality had far more nappies than she’d planned on as a girl. And yet, she wouldn’t give up her life now for anything, not even for Steve.

She could do this for him. It was only a dance. And maybe it would be good for her as well. They had promised each other, after all, once upon a time.

“All right, one dance,” she conceded. She couldn’t give up what she had now, what she’d worked so hard to build, but she could give them both this.

They rose together silently, and Peggy moved back into the living room to find some sort of musical program on the radio. Harry James flooded out of the speaker, incongruous to the time of day, but just what she would have wanted to dance with Steve to all those years ago. She looked back at him, her stomach fluttering nervously. He held out a hand with that same boyish smile that had stolen her heart during the war.

Peggy fingered her wedding ring once, then took his hand and let him pull her into his embrace.

He was taller than Daniel, broader in the shoulders. The size of him took her off guard; she’d grown unused to him, unused to the two of them together. The rhythm of the steps was odd to her too: somewhere in the time they’d spent apart, Steve had learned to dance. Her heart ached to realize that that was another thing she’d missed with him. Her older counterpart might have been the one to teach him, but she suspected that hadn’t been the case. He’d lived a life without her, and she was now doing the same. It hurt with the freshness of new grief.

Steve looked down at her, his face at peace for the first time that afternoon. Just as suddenly as the grief rushed over her, she was filled with gladness. She did that, she gave that to him. If everything he’d told her was true, this might be the first time he’d genuinely felt at peace in years.

She beamed up at him, finally understanding why he had chosen to come find her now. It wasn’t a desire to rekindle something that had turned to ashes, but to set to rest the wondering. This was his goodbye to her the way that afternoon on the Brooklyn Bridge had been her goodbye to him. It was also a gift to her, to let her know that eventually he’d come back to the world, that he wasn’t gone forever. He was giving her hope and the tools to fend off the awful future he’d come from before it had a chance to happen.

Perhaps she could give him a better one, or at least a little hope for himself when he was found in the future she would build for him.

The screen door screeched open then and Peggy turned just as a thud sounded inside the doorway. Daniel stood there, staring at them in shock, betrayal starting to darken his brow.

Peggy stepped out of Steve’s embrace at the same time he released her as though burned.

“Daniel,” Peggy started, then stopped. She knew very well what this must look like, but hadn’t the foggiest clue how to tell the truth of the matter before the wrong idea became permanently stuck in Daniel’s head. Damn Steve and his knack for dragging everyone into melodrama with him.

While she was floundering, Daniel’s jaw went slack with recognition and disbelief as he realized who Steve was, quickly followed by resignation. That simply wouldn’t do at all.

“You’re Steve Rogers,” Daniel said, using his chief’s voice. Peggy barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes.

“I am,” Steve said, stepping forward. “You must be Daniel Sousa. It’s an honor to meet you.”

Daniel blinked at him, then eyed the hand Steve held out to shake. There was reluctance in every line of his body as he grasped it and shook. At least neither of them stooped to any of those ridiculous power games when shaking hands. The uneasy knot in Peggy’s stomach loosened a little.

“Steve came by for a visit,” Peggy said.

“I owed Peggy a dance,” Steve said, a little of his Captain’s voice coming through. “Felt terrible standing her up for all these years.”

Daniel simply looked at him. “Right.”

“I should go. Stop intruding on your day,” Steve said, taking the few steps into the dining room to retrieve his jacket. “You’ll remember what I said?” he asked Peggy, eyes pleading.

“I’m hardly likely to forget it,” Peggy assured him.

He looked pained at that, but didn’t say anything further. Instead, he fiddled with the device around his hand.

“Steve,” she called, catching his arm before he could do anything else. “Don’t forget what I said either. Will you promise me? Promise me you’ll take the chance, give him the choice?”

He smiled at her, eyes sad. “I promise, Peggy.” He looked up at Daniel. “Take care of her. She’s not as invincible as she thinks she is.”

Peggy huffed. “Oh honestly.”

“I know she’s not,” Daniel said, straightening his stance.

Steve nodded a shot him grim smile, then he looked back at Peggy and her heart broke for him all over again. His eyes held all the sadness in the world. She tightened her grip on his arm, then let go.

“You take care of yourself, you hear? Tell him the truth this time.”

Steve smiled. “Yeah. I think I’ve finally learned my lesson on that one. I’ll see you later, Peg. You’re gonna do great things.”

He fiddled with the device around his hand again. With a small pop, he disappeared. Peggy blinked in surprise, eyes wide. Daniel shouted in alarm.

“What the hell? Where did he go?”

On cue, a cry rang out from the nursery. Peggy sighed, instantly exhausted.

“Well, so much for getting anything done this afternoon,” she grumbled, going to fetch the baby. Daniel followed her down the hall, crutch clicking doggedly two steps behind her heels, the radio still playing old wartime jazz in the living room.

“Peggy, what the hell is going on?”

She entered the nursery and lifted the baby out of the crib, then sat in the nearby rocker and wearily loosened her housecoat to extract a too-tender boob. The baby latched on immediately.

“So, it turns out Steve Rogers is alive,” she said casually.

Daniel stared at her incredulously. “Yeah. I saw.”

“Also, time travel is real and Howard will eventually have a son.”

Daniel blinked at her. “What does that– I don’t–”

“Steve came from 74 years in the future to warn me about certain things and to make good on his promise to me. And now he’s gone back to some version of the future to hopefully live out his retirement in peace. That’s the short version.”

Daniel blinked at her again. “I’m not sure if I want to know the long version or not. What do you mean he came from the future?”

Peggy smiled tiredly up at him. Whatever else he might claim, Daniel wouldn’t let this go until he knew everything Steve had told her. He was as bad as she was when it came to uncovering the truth, and she loved him for it.

“Well, Darling, what do you know about suspended animation?”


End file.
